Episode 642: The Gambling, Brackets, and Bonds Edition
Date March 25, 2015 Summary Ben and Sam answer listener emails about players out of position, pace-of-play rules, Bonds vs. Clemens, gambling, and more. Topics * Single position team compositions * Pace of play rules and fines * Barry Bonds vs. Roger Clemens & other player comparisons * The best 'bad' player seasons and clutch hitting * Game fixing and gambling * Negotiating contract length instead of value Intro Jimi Hendrix, "Who Knows" Outro Jimi Hendrix, "Who Knows" Banter Banished to the Pen is running a bracket tournament where listeners can vote on their favorite Effectively Wild topics, players, and running jokes. Sam says he tried to avoid getting invested in it but has nonetheless. Email Questions * Steve (Duluth, MN): "In Episode 627 you answered a question regarding drafting a team of all catchers. I've been thinking about two related questions. If there was a team of all catchers and also a team of all first basemen, and each of the nine position players, ignoring the DH, which of the nine teams would you think would be the best? For this example the choice of players on the pitchers team would be much larger." * Henry: "I think the pace of play rules may backfire spectacularly. The game is not slowing down because pitchers are slower or because Joe Maddon shifts a lot or because David Ortiz has a short attention span, the game is slowing down because the stakes of winning and losing are going up. The dollar value of a win keeps increasing and with it the pressure on every decision that has an effect on the outcome of the game. Decades ago, teams used to talk about offense as an inning by inning concept. Then they started talking about working every at-bat. Now David Ortiz talks about the battle of every pitch. The tactical unit of measure is now very small so tactics take more time. And this progression makes sense if every win is $5 bajillion and it's economically worth it to spend a great deal of time on the minutiae. I tried to get a 1% edge too if 1% was a million bucks. And if there's data to inform even the smallest decisions then of course it will be used. And if there isn't data it's worth another statistician's salary to create that missing info. The game has slowed down because of television, money and data. So that's a long preamble to my question which is: is there any rule governing how quickly the catcher must return the ball to the pitcher or governing how often a pitcher can clean his cleats with the tongue depressor or if Joe Peralta wants to slow down can Yasmani Grandal hold onto the ball longer or can Peralta develop an addition to the rosin bag. At $500 per offense I think teams will pay their sluggers' fines when the batter steps out of the box if slowing down has a positive impact on a team's win probability. Won't they find ways to do it no matter the consequences?" * Scott: "After reading Grant Brisbee's projecting Brandon Crawford's 2015 season post I got lost in the rabbit hole that is the ELO rater on Baseball Reference. After a little while making my voice heard I looked at the rankings. What do you think accounts for Roger Clemens ranking in the top 10 (#8 as I write this) and Barry Lamar Bonds ranking out of the top 100 (#119 as of this writing)? Even A-Rod is higher (#82 today). Bobby Bonds is higher even." * Francis (New York, NY): "Tennis has been marred by various match fixing accusations recently including one discussed on a recent episode of Hang Up and Listen which got me wondering about the likelihood of a baseball gambling scenario. I tried to imagine scenarios in which games could be fixed. I think that umpires are the most likely culprits for involvement in such a scandal. So even though the days of many umps having trademark strike zones seem to be numbered, an umpire still has the power to alter key moments in the game in order to affect the outcome for bettors.' And just like the fringy tennis player doesn't throw every match if umps were strategic about spreading out their favoritism across MLB's long season they could potentially get away with it. However I concluded that players probably make too much money, managers have too little control, and umpires face too much accountability for any of those groups to fix the outcome of games. What do you guys think? Are umps the most likely culprits? Could you ever imagine a player throwing a game? Am I missing any potential scenarios? * Sean (Atlanta, GA): Is that aspect of deals an underreported part of baseball contracts? It seems from a player's perspective, at least in some cases, he would be more concerned about how much money he's making rather than how long he's going to be employed by a certain team. Obviously being an MLB player involves a lot of travel and there isn't all that much stability and certainty regarding settling in one place anyway, and with guaranteed contracts why not go for the money and more or less ignore the years? Would approaching and thinking about contracts this way benefit the team or the player? In Scutaro's case perhaps it benefitted the team. In some cases spreading out the years to get the most money is beneficial to the player if he's not going to get that much money otherwise and a team is willing to spread out that money, essentially deferring money." Play Index * Sam wanted to find out which players had the best 'bad' seasons, by comparing WPA to the player's overall numbers for the year. * In 1996 Troy O'Leary had an OPS+ of 88 but had a cumulative WPA of nearly 3 (similar to Ken Griffey, Jr. that season). * Sam then evaluated players who had more than 1,000 plate appearances in high leverage situations. * Brian Roberts has a career 113 tOPS+ in high leverage situations. Royce Clayton has a career tOPS+ of 87 in high leverage situations. Notes * Sam, on recording the podcast, "I try not to acknowledge that any of this is for consumption." * Sam developed rosters filled with players from each position and then picked a winner for each matchup. He picked the team of all third basemen to win the tournament (defeating pitchers in the finals). Links * Effectively Wild Episode 642: The Gambling, Brackets, and Bonds Edition * 1st Annual Effectively Wild Tournament Bracket Classic by Banished to the Pen * Which Position Would Win A Tournament of Positions? by Sam Miller Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes